Excitement - in the slow lane!

We've been so darned dull lately that we had to do something!  Last week my wife found a notice in the paper about a cactus garden in Las Vegas sponsored by the EthelM Chocolate factory.  They have a free tour and a cactus garden that you can visit.  We waited until Monday to go because we figured there would be crowds over the weekend but we did go.  Amazing!  And it was quite fun.

The EthelM company was set up by one of the Mars family to honor his mother’s ability to make fine chocolates.  I’m hoping they are fine because they want $2 a piece (declining to $1 each if you buy a box of 48) for these chocolates.  Sometimes I’m really thankful my wife is trying to lose weight!  So we went through the free tour; it was almost overpriced at that but it was ok.  You walk this corridor staring through windows at the workers on the line.  Gee, there must have been six or eight workers making candy.  It wasn’t very exciting but then we got out to the plants. 

When we showed up it was almost mid-day so my photos aren’t great but the plants really made up for it.  You wander around on little paved paths looking at the cacti and their associated name tag.  I’ve no idea how many species were represented but they were mostly looking really happy.   Here is an ocotillo.

Since I am not much of a plant person, I decided to take a photo of the name tags too – like here.

This is an example of a really happy silver yucca.

The only real downside was this.

We were right under the landing pattern for McCarran International Airport!  Good place for a candy factory though.  I’m pretty sure it didn’t bother the candy at all.  Or the workers, I’m sure there is plenty of other mechanical noise to keep their attention.  Bottom line though is that I highly recommend spending an hour or so in this really nice cactus garden. It's not unknown; there were tour busses and vans around all the time so just be aware you won't be alone.

Have a good one.